MG Sports Cars

Jim:

Thx for your responses.

And... I think I figured out our problems. It's two-fold. (Don't groan-- this is benevolent. :) )

a) communication
b) Expectations.

On the first, to give an example, I think I took offense that you would complain about the appearance of the wiring, but you never actually bothered to ask "what were we thinking?" A lot of your complaints I read about HERE and you never bothered to get an explanation from the source, or, really, to "debrief" from the last crew unto the next.

The wiring harness is a PERFECT example for ironing this out.

We did everything democratically at my work sessions. When You now offer a differing opinion, it's already been at least 2--1 if not unanimous for something to be done how it was. The wiring harness, for instance, was voted 2-1 to be left UNWRAPPED.

Our main reason was ACCESS. We had NOTHING in the car-- everything had to be wired, some locations still figured out. And until the car ran, we had no idea if these would be good choices or not. We figured keeping the wires seen and easily tested and accessed might be beneficial. Also, at the time, it was a HUGE time saver for getting the harness IN and Working. (Working was good. Car a big unknown, blah blah)

In the end, despite your current objections Jim, this WAS the right decision! In the time since we routed the wires a) you informed me of the surge tank needing that entire corner, so two different wiring bundles had to be moved (starter and green circuit wires), and b) you've just moved the compressor from that corner as well! In both case, HAD the harness been wrapped-- what a pain in the ass! Now, once you are happy with ALL the wires--- you can wrap it, all wires will be included, and it'll look AWESOME. (Yes, it's some back-tracking, but read on....)


Our other reason on the wiring harness, was, hilariously-- Perfection. We didn't think we could get it! (I'm not laughing, it just seems like I am.) We saw the rot holes in the floor, the waves in the glass fenders, the rust bubbles around the glass... and, well, we realized the car would NOT be "perfect", so we focussed more on making it A CAR so we could see what it could do! (REM: Big 455 under hood! Drool, drool...) Thus, our focus, nearly from the outset, was just to get the car ASSEMBLED into a "car", and sweat the little stuff later (like You're doing Now...) when it all actually WORKED. Basically, we had "The Prototype". (Or "Mule" might be even better, seeing as how we never got to drive the car!)

Seriously (to ask You the "think about it"-type question): wouldn't it seem a bit ridiculous for our two months to be up and I gave you back a car with nothing else assembled, and yet a PERFECT wiring harness? Seems a little anal to Me.... "That's all you did, the wiring harness?!?"

(One of My pet peeves is the owner with the tidy wipe in the car who keeps everything dainty-- while the car is a mechanical mess! I say "Yep, sure will look pretty... by the side of the road!") I think things need to work First. (I'm a "drive around in primer for a year" kind of guy.)) Pretty comes later, after you actually KNOW that it works, you like where it is, and you're ready to "step up" to that level.

Which brings us to point two: Expectations.

Frankly, I finally realized that I should be flattered at your criticisms. (Took me AWHILE... obviously.. to figure this out! Sorry...)

Think about it: Jim has the LUXURY of Nit-Picking! That's how good of a job we did on the car! He's so close to driving it around he can actually complain about small stuff! I finally realized that must have meant, given Our above goal ("get it assembled")-- that we must have done okay!

As for the harness, here's the simple Baseball Analogy:

We (the crew) are standing on 2nd base after a Double! Jim is hollering that we should have gone to Third!

But we're all on the bag going "Yeah, we got a hit!!" :-)


I'm glad you think it can BE a show car, Jim. You have that pallette to look at and work from.

We had an empty cabin, a dead battery, and piles of used parts to start with. Hell, I was tickled to hear Steve drove it to the Cruise In!

Simply put, our expections were lower than yours are now-- we had to resurrect a restoration project, but you have to work out the fine details of what you hope will be a show car. Different stages, and you weren't here for Ours and we only got to attempt some of what you're having to finish now.... Obviously, associated emotions are different, too. We were all very disappointed to not make the dyno (our "carrot".) We had too many mechanical issues. I should be pleased, then, that the car has progressed to inop radios-- we had inop BRAKES!!! (Seriously. Car couldn't stop. Rolled down the parking lot...)


I'm pleased You are able to have higher expectations, as I'm sure we all are. And I'm not saying you're wrong ("striving for perfection")... merely that maybe we should get the baby walking before we throw the Debutante Ball? :-) (I've missed baby's first steps, as it were, so that's how I'm out of the loop!)


Next time, just ask me what the devil We all were thinking when you don't like something! Because we had our reasons... I don't think anything was installed on that car without some conferring. Steve, with his continuity to the project and most time spent with You, had more weight in his opinions than the rest of us. We figured he likely knew more about what was intended. Still, most of the decisions we made were NOT appearance based but functional-- we wanted stuff on the car where it could work.

You complain about the gauges but... so did we. (Did you notice how the dash wasn't FINALLY installed until the *last* session?) I felt you were just rehashing all the same stuff that we suffered through already.... waste of time, etc.


When doing a "Car by Committee" you have to honor the efforts of others. (You've made reference to all the others before, and you are quite right-- it takes ALL the fits and starts and failed attempts to finally get something right! (Read: Harness Beta 1.0)) A lot of what else motivated us was this underlying knowledge: "Well, somebody donated it...". Which made us try a little harder to make it fit, get it to work, etc. Sometimes to the detriment of progress.

However, I'll also confess that we had to take a 4th Down approach: first install, one attempt to fix, maybe one more-- then Punt and move onto something where we COULD be productive! No beating our heads over "one little thing" when there were HUGE issues still facing us. That was a luxury we didn't have, or, honestly, would have seemed INappropriate to take.

It's this thinking that explains why we had no working tachometer or temp gauge, but were trying to get to the dyno. The first two seemed like "liveable" problems AT THE TIME (kinda like You're mentioning Now with other things?)-- "hey, I got a tach in the timing gun and an infrared thermometer"-- in light of the bigger goal of getting to the dyno.

Anyway, that's why you're wiring harness is just a trunk of wires. :p Yes, it was intentional. No, we didn't expect it to be permanent---just to work! :-)

Peace,

M



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12/15/2011 11:59PM by madmax.

Those last few posts are a perfect example of how you cannot read emotion through a message board. Knowing you guys and following all through this project, I can see that you both are saying a lot of the same things. We can apply all kinds of analogies to help explain, but the bottom line is Max and crew(I wish I had been able to make it!) did their phase of the job, really more than expected, and taking up slack from Jack, and now Jim is tidying up. This is in keeping with the entire project really. i think a lot of the work we did at Pete's was reworked again in Sioux Falls, we just didn't have the body shop guys reporting on it.

I think what is important about this project is not so much the car, what gets done to it or what gets redone, or even the mission of promoting the hobby to the younger generation. In my mind, the most important thing about the Roadmaster is the cultivation and growing of the personal relationships between all the contributors. This is a great group of guys!

Thanks Max. Good to have you back. Lots of very good points, and you're right, I do have the luxury of nitpicking. In fact that's job one right now and it never would have been possible without everyone else's help as you pointed out. Your approach was exactly the right one and it's allowed me to improve the appearance of the car noticeably. Along with Steve's work on tuning which got the thing driveable, we are almost there. So very close in fact that I have a great deal of trouble not being drawn into working on the GT when I should be doing other things. It's like this huge sucking magnet in the corner of the shop. Every time I wander too close, there I am sorting out some detail. How close is too close? Well, leaving the house might qualify...

But that's OK. There's not that much left to do and it's really, and I mean REALLY looking good. A couple of reliability, comfort, and tidiness things to work on but I think that's about it. So far we have accomplished everything we set out to do, so I guess the next challenge facing us will be putting it on the road.

JB

Well, I'm glad you two kissed & made up! :)

We've been good friend for many years and it greatly disturbed me to read this bickering in the Roadmaster thread. I've been trying to figure out what to say to smooth the ruffled feathers. I guess nothing, now, 'cept don't do that no mo'!

All bichin', moanin', & groanin, must here on out be done in person.

Guilty as charged.
Seems reasonable to me.

JB

I had a chance to do a short test drive this afternoon and have several positive things to report. The tachometer is working correctly and is rock solid. The alternator is holding 14.5 volts which is fine. The capacitor trick on the fuel gauge is going to work but I have to find a place to hide a 34,000 microfarad capacitor. The radio works. The speedometer does not. Luckily Dan requested installation instructions so when those get here maybe they will help, and having the tach working will be a big help. The hood latches properly, the air cleaner doesn't try to rotate anymore and the air ride system is working correctly. The PCV and tray are in place, there is a heat shield on the heater hose and the seat back adjuster tabs are in place and working but not yet glued on. I think we are getting down to the more minor annoyances.

Of those, and pardon my whining but that's what you guys are paying me the big bucks to do, we have a problem with the heater controls. Apparently not all of the gearboxes are the same, and the shafts on the ones we have are too short to allow the early style knobs to lock in place. Really I'm just guessing here because I don't exactly know what is going on or why, I just know the knob keeps falling off. Someone needs to figure out why and find the parts to fix it.

That leaves the speedo, balancing the driveshaft, the noisy diff, and a few minor oil leaks. And apparently the console light which I will probably fix later today, and then go over Max's knock-out list to see if there is anything I missed.

I think everyone deserves a big congratulation at this point, because by George, we've done it! Although I really do think we need to balance that driveshaft before doing any more long distance trips, its a two man job, requiring one to operate the controls while the other places the adjustable weights to eliminate the vibration. So it may be February before we can get to that one.

JB

Sounds like great progress Jim.

I don't have any good knobs, but I'm pretty sure I have at least a couple of the heater switch mechanisms. Let me know if they'd help.

What year car did they come from Rob? David Bash was going to send a knob ('69-'71 {at least} style with the white letters) but I'm not sure he's gotten the PM I sent him with my address. David, I should have just said send it to the address under my avatar. Sorry, I forgot it was there.

Anyway the story on those gearbox mechanisms is that we had a couple of broken ones and a couple of good ones and picked the best and tossed the others, never noticing if there was a difference. Then there was a vinyl overlay applied to the dash but none of us expected that to add enough thickness to cause any problems, and now the shafts are too short by about a quarter inch. I've never run into this problem before so I'm not quite sure what the remedy is. But at any rate, what we have is the infamous "Abingdon Pillow" dashboard, as used at least from '69 to '71. I suspect we have gearboxes for a different year.

JB

My email to SW bounced back to me, so I guess the instruction may not be coming. According to their tech support website, the wiring diagrams are in the SW Catalog, so if anybody has one. please check to see if they are there for the Wings series.

I am talking about the electronic speedo head, BTW....



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/19/2011 09:37AM by Dan B.

SW catalogue in pdf format....... wiring diagrams on p.49
[www.stewartwarnercanada.com]
...see if it helps any!

OK, there's the problem. We're using the wrong sender. It doesn't work with the one that is in the transmission and I'm guessing that's a GM sender. So what we need is a conventional speedometer drive for the T-5, and install the other sender that came back in the box of parts, then we can rewire the thing and get the right gear to correct the reading for whatever error it has. (The diff uses 3.54 gears btw.)

Anybody got that plug-in?

I got a call today from an apparently well heeled individual in Florida who would like awfully much to be able to buy the car at some point. It sounds like we are starting to get some recognition.

Also I had some extra keys made today. Figured that would be cheap insurance.

JB

Edit: A little too quick on the draw maybe, in looking at the drawing for a magnetic pickup which seems to be what is installed, our connection to the speedo head is incorrect. This can be fixed but may require the dash to come back out. I will have a look.

J



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/19/2011 07:56PM by BlownMGB-V8.

Jim, I'll have to check when I get back home tomorrow. I think I have some from each of 67, 72, and 74. Will dig them out and measure the posts.

Thanks Rob, that should help immensely.

JB

The speedo works. It reads about 2/3 scale.

JB

I wonder if SpeedHut would consider donating a GPS unit?

Is the speedo programmable? If so, there'll be a sequence you follow to put it in programmable mode, then you drive a pre-determined distance (e.g., autometer is 2 miles), then do a couple more steps & the speedo "learns" how many pulses per mile. If you have the model number I can see if I can find the manual on line.

I don't think it is. It's the Stewart Warner "Wings" series. I don't remember seeing any sort of button or switch anywhere on it.

Rick, you're certainly welcome to try. One thing though that might make it look a little odd is that the gauges all have an obviously convex glass. I doubt SpeedHut would duplicate that. Also it would mean taking the dashboard back out to swap them. Maybe changing the drive gear would work?

JB

Tranny shops have gear adapters you can put between the cable and tranny.

2Well, the sender plugs right into the tranny so I don't know how well that might work. Rick's idea might be the best, and the dash isn't all THAT hard to remove. It would definitely be worth doing if one was donated... no issues with calibration. Might be worth asking them how close they could come to the "Wings" series gauges.

I drove to Milton today and borrowed Edith's GPS for the trip. The speedo is reading right at 60% of road speed so about 45 for 75mph. If there is a way to calibrate it I'm all for that.

So about the drive... First off, the car performed flawlessly. Not one sign of bad manners of any sort. It just keeps getting better and better. I think the car and the engine are beginning to become happy with each other. That's not to say there are no annoyances, but everyone's hard work has certainly paid off, and this is an excellent representative of the British V8 in the form of a GT. It is indeed a master of the road. Good handling, great roadholding, and of course just gobs of completely effortless power. In addition it is getting excellent gas mileage. Regrettably I did not reset the GPS until halfway through the trip, but at 180 or so miles I'm still showing half a tank. I do believe the bottom half to be considerably smaller than the first half but even if I burned 8 gallons that's over 20 MPG. The return trip should tell the tale, but Steve got 20mpg on his last tank and I ran the mixture screws in about 4 turns each and that should be good for a bit. We will see.

Now about those annoyances. The steering needs tightened up a bit, the driveshaft causes some vibration around 60, some exhaust gets in the car, and we have noise from the fuel pump and possibly the ignition module, anyway something is buzzing at engine speed. Despite all that, the car is very happy just loping along in the mid 70s with the engine ticking over somewhere in the neighborhood of 2100-2200 rpm. That's not really in the powerband for this engine but even so it has all the power you need, even for passing.

I got to do a couple short laps "around the block" of the MRRRC (about 4 miles estimated) but at night and with passengers was not going for a real test. The car does really well in the tight sections but the rearview mirror is very much in the way, no real surprise. On the straights I opened it up a couple of times in 2nd and it's really, REALLY quick. I began to get some spin as the engine got happy. With these tires I don't know if it'll do that in 3rd or not but that test can wait.

The car has gotten a lot of attention so far, and people really like it. The hood latch may become one of the most used things on the car. I had a pair of window cards made up and laminated then placed those in the rear quarter windows. That will satisfy many people's curiosity but an unexpected side effect has been questions about the car being for sale. Well, I suppose if you'd rather ask questions than read that is to be expected.

JB

Jim, we all want to know what the maximum speed is. With the GPS on board were you not tempted to find out. The only time I was in the US your country roads were so straight and quiert. There must be one near you where you can max the car and also measure the standing 1/4.